It’s a tough life, but someone’s gotta do it.

Well, Paul is safely back in Portland now, after having spent an uneventful but still fun week here.  I really enjoyed having him around - it made France seem like home for just a little while.  And I also really enjoyed watching “Firefly” with him; good, good show, although too short-lived.  We honestly didn’t do much other than watch “Firefly,” “Highlander,” and “Johnny Carson.” Occasionally I dragged him out for a walk or to school (where he made quite an impression on the girls, let me tell you! ;-) ), but other than that, we just lounged.  It was great.  ::smile::

Now, however, he is gone (alas, alack), and I have to suffer through two whole days of school before vacation begins.  Like I said, it’s a tough life.  But as soon as I’ve finished the English club tomorrow at 1:15 (since the class that I normally have on Friday afternoons has been cancelled), I am officially on vacation.  I’m going to meet up with a friend of mine that I haven’t seen for several months on Saturday in Reims for a few hours, and I have a bunch of calls to make this weekend, but other than that, I’ll just be packing, double-checking that I have my passport (I have contacted a surgeon about attaching it to my wrist), and packing my cameras and film!

On a possibly-less-exciting note, I have recently joined the NBA.

That’s right - I am the sole, founding member of Nail Biters Anonymous, and I am proud to say that through a strict mental and physical regimen I have now gone for 39 hours without biting or picking at my nails or my cuticles!  Go me!

It may seem odd that I’m making such a big deal of this, but breaking myself of the nail-biting habit is my way of convincing myself that I can break myself of an equally-long-standing, much-more-ingrained habit: my tendency to hair-trigger emotionality.  Without going into a long discussion, I have decided that the “work” that I have been doing on this problem for the past three years just isn’t cutting it, and I need to really crack down.  ...

The bell has just rung, so I can’t really go into this now, and besides, my thoughts are jumbled already, but wish me luck, please!  I really want to beat this habit (both of these habits, I should say), and I’m going to need all the luck that I can gather!

I’ll try to write once more before I leave.  Until then, have a good week/weekend!